He wipes away a tear with his thumb. "'Tis too late for my realm." His gaze goes to my lips.

"Even if I didn't want to be here, I don't know how to go home. It means we have to stop this, no matter what."

"'Tis not possible." His calmness normally steadies me. This time, it makes me frantic. I can hear his resolve, his acceptance of the situation. He's truly given up.

"You have to stop this." I take his hand and squeeze. "No one else can!"

"'Tis not so easy. I have tested the evil of this place. It cannot be defeated, not after a thousand years."

I don't know what to say and my throat is almost too tight to speak.

His eyes return to mine, flickering between gray and black, fog and man, death and life.

"Please try," I whisper.

"I do not have that power."

"Then who does?"

"No one."

"Not even me?"

His eyes go to the spot on my chest where the Heart rested. "I felt it die."

Oh, god. The tears are coming, accompanied by raw emotion I can't stop. Afraid to feel and terrified of being hurt, I've spent a lifetime building barriers around my heart and feelings. The walls are crashing down, releasing every part of me I've ever tried to hide away. My body quivers with the effort it takes to prevent a breakdown.

"So that's it?" I whisper in a choked voice. "It's over."

"Aye, 'tis."

"But . . . I just found out you're not really betrothed." What a stupid thing to say. On the edge of the apocalypse and all I can think about is how much I really, really want a shot with the man before me?

His eyebrows go up. "What say you?"

"She told me, and her brother, that she's been bonded to the Desert Knight's son for a year."

"Desert Knight's son," he repeats. "I knew she was bonded . . ." A spark of something is in his eyes.

"What?" I ask instantly, my emotions careening from despair to hope.

He shakes his head.

"Please, please tell me you have an idea!" I plead, moving closer. I take his face and force him to look down at me. "Does it mean anything if I say I'll consider your offer to become your queen, if you do it?"

"Offer?" he repeats, offense in his tone. "A Knight does not offer." As he speaks, his hands settle on my hips. "There is no way to stop this, Naia. I would take you as my queen tonight only to lose you tomorrow."

"It's my fault, isn't it? If I'd believed you sooner, tried harder to help, prevented the-" My words are choked, barely audible.

"Nay." He draws me into his hard body. "'Tis not your duty to prevent my realm from dying. It is mine."

"It's why I'm here! And I failed. I always fail!" The tears are coming faster, the reality of my situation smashing down on me. I had a chance to make a difference, to help the amazing man before me and failed. "I'm so sorry. So, so sorry!"

"You once said the war and my betrothed were between us. 'Tis not the case now." He's mildly amused, his thumbs wiping away my tears.

I meet his gaze, every thought in my mind growing quiet at the intensity of his look. "Your last day on earth and you want sex." For some reason, it strikes me as funny, and I begin a painful combination of sobbing and laughing, hiccupping and coughing.

After the embarrassing episode, I wipe my face and look up at him once more.

The corner of his lips turned up in a smile. "I would like to spend my last night with my queen."

"I'm not your queen."

"Do you wish to be?"

I stare at him, every hormone in my body jumping and screaming, while my brain seems to completely stop working. "Is this because I'm the only girl around?" I ask suspiciously, unable to process the idea of belonging to this man, of him belonging to me, even for one night.

"'Tis because no woman has ever touched my heart the way you have."

I melt. His grip tightens around me, his arousal growing hard against my belly. My pulse is flying, desire so hot within me, I'm about to spontaneously combust.

Attraction, need, and despair sizzle in the air between us. His eyes are almost white, a sign of the intensity of his emotion, one that terrifies me as much as it thrills me. It's more than physical attraction between us and probably always has been, even if I wasn't ready to admit it before.

He was made for me in every way, from the incredible, muscular frame to the way he sees through the barriers I like to keep between the world and me. The first to believe in me, the last to give up hope, his sexy-as-hell dominance is tempered by thoughtfulness, insight, and the ability to love something so much, he's fought to save it since he could lift a sword. Dedication has nothing on this man.

Almost since I've met him, I've wanted to know what it's like to be the woman his world revolves around. I've also feared knowing. He will tolerate no barriers, nothing less than absolute surrender, from the woman he turns his heart over to, and in exchange, he will love with all the ferocity of the fires of hell, hot enough to consume them both and the realm around them.

Do I really want that woman to be me? To surrender every part of me?

He's right. There's nothing between us now, not the war, not his betrothed. It took his world ending for us to arrive here. One night can never be enough.

I opened the door to my soul yesterday and refused him entrance. But if we've got less than twenty-four hours left, what's the harm in letting him in? In surrendering every part of me for one night in his muscular arms?

In taking the chance to live, feel, love, and be loved?

An eternity in darkness or one night with the light on?

"Yes," I whisper, the tears forming once again. "But only if you swear we'll try to find another way in the morning."

"Agreed. The morning is yours. The night is mine."

I nod. Am I really ready for this? For him?

"And I expect obedience in bed as well as on the battlefield, my queen," he says, a slow smile crossing his features. "Absolute obedience."

The hunger in his gaze makes my breath catch, his intensity already rocking my world before he's even kissed me.

Tonight is going to be something I never forget.

Taking his cheeks in my hands, I rise up on my tiptoes and kiss him hard, sliding my tongue between his lips to taste him once more. His response is instant and he deepens the kiss, his velvety tongue moving expertly against my lips and inside my mouth. Any second thought fizzles and disappears, along with the emotions and barriers that have guarded me for years.

The feeling rising in their place is one of pure joy, happiness I've never experienced, a sense of being where I belong so intense, it anchors in my soul.

"My god," I breathe, dropping onto my heels. The sense I experienced when I first saw the emerald hills is back, piercing me to the core.

Home. It's not just the place it's the man.

"'Tis the bonding, I believe," he whispers, temple against mine. "Did I not tell you to cease fighting your destiny?"

"You also threw me out of a tree," I point out breathlessly. I can't help it I'm crying, laughing, aching so badly to feel his skin, I can't think of anything but feeling him inside me as he claims me, running my hands over every inch of the warm, smooth, fragrant skin coating his incredible body. To smell, touch, devour . . . I need him in a way that goes much deeper than physical lust. I need him to be a part of me, to become one.

"I need you too much to be gentle," he says huskily. His palms skim down my body, one hand going to my ass and pulling me hard against his straining cock. He's long and thick.

"I don't care," I gasp, already lost to him. "Wreck me. I'm yours."

With a growl that doesn't sound human, he claims my lips. His touch grows rougher, commanding my body.

This can't be the end. The thought quickly fades, burnt up in his passion, and I take the step I never thought I'd ever take.

I surrender. Every last part of me.

Chapter Twenty One.

The Shadow Knight had never intended for his witch to be drawn into the final day of this curse. In his last moments alive, he wanted to be numb, to watch the world crumble from a place of neither emotion nor memory of how he had failed. He planned on being alone, on sequestering himself in the bedchamber that was supposed to become his when he was master of the castle.

He didn't expect his witch to find him, especially once the Heart was destroyed.

By some miracle, she had, and he began to realize they were reliving the fate of his ancestor, the Shadow Knight whose death started the curse. Naia had predicted his death at the hands of Brown Sun Lake and they'd bonded the night before the final battle.

The only real difference: the world was ending this day and there was no Heart for Naia to use to cast another thousand-year spell.

His feelings and mind refused to give him peace and grant him the respite he hoped to have today. Pain so raw it caused physical pain made him touch his heart, and he rose from the bed where he had spent the entire night making love to his battle-witch, his queen, his Naia, who slept deeply after the long night.

She proved to be as intriguing in bed as she was during daylight, her complete submission making his sense of possessiveness roar in satisfaction. He had laid with her every way possible, unable to get enough of her, needing more despite the hours they spent with their skin pressed together.

Sweet, gentle, spirited, beautiful. His queen was not traditional, but she was his in every way, a woman with compassion greater than all the magic of the medallion she wore, whose tears for him and his world were genuine, and whose cries and sighs as she writhed beneath him made him want to do what he thought impossible.

He wanted . . . needed to save her. His soul quivered with the despair brought on by the thought of watching her die. One night with the woman who brought him back to life and gave him hope was not enough.

The Shadow Knight crossed to the window and braced his hands on either side. It was harder than usual to know what time of day it was; the black clouds above his castle shunted out even more sunlight than usual. It was lightening outside despite the fog, and he judged it to be around mid-morning.

He had dreamt since he was five of seeing the blue sky during his reign. Instead, the heavens had turned black because he was unable to stop it.

His eyes swept over the city. Tens of thousands of people waited for him to awaken them from their slumbers and revive their world. They, too, would perish before the sun set, along with every other person in the realm.

And Naia.

The pain was back.

He pushed away from the window and pulled on his breeches and boots, unable to think clearly whenever his mind went to her. He wanted to crawl into bed beside her and make love to her up until the very last moment of their existence. He had swept them both into pleasure unknown before last night, and it was not enough.

Accustomed to solving his problems through battle, he stood and thought hard, pulling on his tunic. Never before was he willing to listen to Naia's insistence there was more than one way to resolve the conflict between Black Moon Draw and Brown Sun Lake. Mayhap it was pride, arrogance, or desperation, but he wished now he had tried a different approach at least once. The reasoning that it never worked for his predecessors suddenly seemed foolish, especially when he considered that neither had battle.

Strapping on his weapons, he snatched up the boar's head worn by every Shadow Knight for a thousand years and hesitated, gaze going to the woman sleeping in his bed.

Her face glowed, even in sleep. Naia was curled up on her side, clutching a pillow, her dark hair spilling over the pillow.

He did not deserve to touch her, not last night, not now. A victor deserved a queen.

A coward deserved death.

If he was not able to find another way to do the impossible and save the woman who held his heart, then he would die trying.

Placing the boar's head over his own, he turned away and strode to the door, determined to find the Desert Knight of Brown Sun Lake among the changing maze of the castle.

Chapter Twenty Two.

Totally. Worth. It. I had no idea sex could be so consuming and offer so much pleasure, both physically and mentally. Atreyu was more than I expected, almost too much to handle at points, reminding me in honeyed growls to trust him and submit, no matter what he asked me to do or what position he put my body in. He takes the word obedience to a whole new level.

I have absolutely no regrets. The moment my eyes open in the morning, I crave him with inhuman yearning.

Stretching luxuriously, my utter contentment is interrupted only by soreness in muscles I didn't know existed before last night. It's light outside, and a cold breeze sweeps into the bedchamber. With a delicious shiver, I pat the bed beside me, expecting to feel the warm skin coating his ripped body. I'm ready for another round of his voracious appetite to warm me up.

He's not there.

I sit up, happiness turning to alarm. It's the last day of this world. Reality returns and my chest grows tight.

He's not anywhere, and the boar head is gone, along with his weapons. I can think of one reason for that that he found a new battle to fight but don't have any idea what he might be planning to do after his utter desolation last night.

If I know men, it's probably something really stupid. What happens if I don't see him again before this is over? If we end up wandering lost through the mazes of the castle up until sunset?

Uncontrollable fear smashes into me. I scramble out of bed, dress clumsily, and quickly summon the outhouse. My inner thighs tremble too much for me to keep my thighs together and newly discovered muscles in my pelvis and abs making me yowl aloud at one point.